Getting What They Fear

Russia is annoying me lately. We have no interest in attacking them. Nor does NATO have any ability to attack them any more than Russia has the ability to drive all the way to the Rhine (or even the Vistula) these days. Each has the size and power to absorb any ground invasion the other is capable of generating without giving up more than border areas (which is obviously of concern to those NATO countries living in a border zone). Yet Russia talks as if they are in a race against time to keep NATO tanks from firing on the Kremlin. Yeah, Napoleon and Hitler marched on Moscow. But get over it.

Yet Russia has a certain point:

Russian leaders admit that NATO and the United States have no intention of attacking them. But Russians do not base their defense strategy just on intentions, but on capabilities as well. As long as the United States and NATO have such overwhelming military capabilities (compared to Russia), then Russia must prepare for the possibility that the intentions could quickly change (for whatever reason) and then the superior capabilities would be a serious threat.

I'll grant that you have to look at capabilities because intentions change over night. That's why I want credible NATO plans to defend the new NATO members in the east in case Russia has a go at restoring the borders of the USSR.

But Russia should really just shut up about the whole NATO threat thing. Fine, build up their military just in case. Any government would want to do that and I won't argue that Russia's conventional military capabilities aren't so low that they can't defend their borders.

I know that the Russians must think that rattling sabres at NATO (including America) is a cost-free way to build public support for spending money to rebuild conventional forces because NATO has no intention of attacking them. In the end, Russia can deploy those forces in areas from the Caspian Sea to Vladivostok that need more conventional power to face actual threats.

But would it kill the Russians to build up their military without provoking us verbally? After all, if Russia builds up capabilities in Europe, won't NATO have to act on Russian capabilities, too? And if Russian capabilities are matched by hostile Russian rhetoric, won't we have even more reason to build up our military forces in Europe?

If the Russians keep this up, they might one day get a hostile America and NATO. Moscow can't count on the "flexibility" of President Obama forever. Neither of us needs that kind of mutual hostility when both Russia and America should be pivoting to Asia.